More to Life Project

The More To life program is an eight week program. Over those eight weeks the program includes, education on some of the myths and beliefs surrounding gambling, education on how to take care of yourself by looking at healthier lifestyle alternatives e.g. diet, exercise and relaxation techniques, bringing out the creative side in the women through drawings or poetry and looking at some of the feelings that may have led to the gambling becoming a problem. Many women feel isolated and alone, having no close friends or family to offer support or to help ease the pain of loneliness

The Gambling Impact Society (NSW) Inc. was thrilled to receive news that we had been successful in our application to the NSW Department Of Women to bring the More to Life - Women & Gambling Program to the Shoalhaven region. The program was originally developed by the Northern Suburbs Community Development Project in the Illawarra under an original 12 month grant from the CCBF in 1998. Project worker Sue Brittain conducted extensive research on the experience of women and gambling and from this developed and piloted a community education program for the northern Illawarra. The program led to the publishing of a comprehensive “resource kit for running groups with women who gamble”. This manual is to guide facilitators of this 10 session community education and self-help skills program.

The women who successfully finished the group program said “it was the best thing we have done in a very long time”. They became very supportive of each other and this mutual support seems to have had the greatest affect on them. Knowing they were not alone, that there was someone else who felt or had felt the way they did, that there was someone who understood completely the way they were feeling. They also met for coffee throughout the week and supported each other with phone calls when the need was there. At one point they all agreed that the only friends they had were in the group, having isolated themselves from most other people for fear of them finding out what was happening in their lives. The group decided they wished to continue after the initial eight weeks and open it up to new members as an ongoing support group. They said “others have to know about this”. They thought it was a very important program and could not see how they would have progressed from gambling controlling their lives to them successfully controlling the behaviour without the support they had gained in the group work.

This information was produced with funding support from the NSW Department for Women. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department for Women.

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